Chilango2 said:
Saskwach:
Before we get into a kerfuffle I think what we have to agree on what we both mean by "direct democracy". You seem to mean " a country that votes on everything". I mean "a country that votes on everything but MAINLY a country that CAN vote on anything yet still has a representative system that does the day to day running of things". You'll have no argument from me that your type will never work. However, the second, while obviously not pure direct democracy, seems to be the closest while still working well. In other words, a chunk of our disagreement seems to be that you think I'm asking for a system like Athens had when I'm not.
It pays to be precise about what you are arguing for, yes. Your earlier statement seemed to be in favor of direct democracy, whereas now, your basically arguing for is that features that give the populace a means to work through the system (such as the initiative system in California, which will be my main focus as having lived there for a decade or so in the past I am most familiar with it) and create laws and similar functions off the popular will.
The type of inititives you are discussing here were mostly passed as part of the general progressive era of reform in the US (I have no idea as to their history in Italy), with the argument for them being more or less precisely the one you elucidate. A representative system is vulnerable to capture by the elites, and the popular will was being thwarted. So things such as the popular election of Judges, popular referendum/initiative systems, etc, were implemented.
But how do they work in practice?
In practice, popular refrenda are a means for already existing power coalitions to try and get around the reprsantitive system and pass laws that suit their own purposes. Quite often, the refrendia in question are sold on a pack of lies, or have long term unintended consequences.
For example, let's look at two California initiatives that passed for an illustration of the probelms with these systems: Prop 13 and Prop 187.
Prop 13 meant that anybody who owned property from the date the proposition passed had their property taxes frozen. This created two main problems: The primary way schools get money in the US is through property taxes. This turned CA public schools, which were among the best in the country at the time, into among the nation's worst, despite the fact that CA is the biggest, richest state in the country. The second effect is that it created a increasingly arbitrary duality, wherein people who were lucky enough to own their property at a certain time paid much less in taxes than their more recent neighbors. It discouraged moving, it discouraged the sell of homes, and again, was essentially arbitrary. Furthermore, the entire project was organized by a conservative organization that followed Grover Norquist's view that it was necessary to 'kill government" by starving it of funds. To this day, this and other anti-tax initiatives, have placed California in a constant state of budgetary crisis. So here, you see the example of more or less precisely what was warned about. A certain slice of the voting public took their short term interests as more valuable but caused untold chaos and harm to their state. Their children were less well educated. Their services were less efficient. And so on.
Now look at Prop 187. This was a Propistion supported and organized by the then Republican Governor of California, Pete Wilson, to help him win re-election. It was based on the simple lie that illegal immigrants were a burden to tax paying citizens and were "using up" state services as free riders. (in fact, most illegal immigrants pay taxes *and* under-use public services) And the Proposition was allegedly just "anti illegal immigrants" but it was sold and marketed as *anti-Mexican*. The Mexican community started out mildly supporting the bill, but the "marketing campaign" for it was sufficently racist that when the bill was voted on, 70% of whites or so voted for it, while 70% of hispanics or so voted *against* it. Furthermore, it relied on the flawed belief that denying services to immigrants would dissuade them from coming, instead, it would simply push immigrants further into the "black" parts of the economy. The denial of public health services would also isnure tat illness would go untreated, and perhaps become a public health hazard. Shortly after the bill passed, a court ruled that most of it was unconstitutional, which prevented most of this tragedies, but note how a wide wathe of the public was convinced to pass a bill based on falsehoods, that would actually harm the generla public, and which was illegal on its face, due to racism and nativism, all for the political benifit of a particular party.
These two Propositions almost perfectly illustrate the failure and faults of the progressive "democratization" reforms you support.
I agree that making a representative democracy more responsive to the popular will is a good thing, I just think the ways you are discussing don't achieve your goal, and furthermore have negative externalities such as the ones shown above. A better way is to go directly to the sources of the vulnerability of a representative system to elite capture: Encourage public funding of campaigns or federal small donor matching funds, encourage apoliticized district drawing to prevent gerrymandering, a strong independent ethics body to prevent and punish corruption, make voting easy, convenient, and secure, encourage a diverse and independent media, and so on. *That* is the way to mix the strengths of direct popular will and representative systems.
"It pays to be precise about what you are arguing for, yes. Your earlier statement seemed to be in favor of direct democracy, whereas now, your basically arguing for is that features that give the populace a means to work through the system (such as the initiative system in California, which will be my main focus as having lived there for a decade or so in the past I am most familiar with it) and create laws and similar functions off the popular will."
I was very precise about what I meant by DD in my first post on page 1 but I think you the bile in my second overrode that precision for you. Sorry about that.
You've proved that on element of DD-the initiative of law by citizens- is open to abuses like all other systems. However to prove that RD is fundamentally better than DD you'd have to prove that no similar mistakes, gaffes and abuses have ever occured under representative government. Has no education or other system been royally screwed over by a representative government? Are there no sinister organisations using these governments quite well for their own gain?
Anyway, I don't think these Propositions are so bad or so damning as you paint them.
"Prop 13 meant that anybody who owned property from the date the proposition passed had their property taxes frozen. This created two main problems: The primary way schools get money in the US is through property taxes. This turned CA public schools, which were among the best in the country at the time, into among the nation's worst, despite the fact that CA is the biggest, richest state in the country. The second effect is that it created a increasingly arbitrary duality, wherein people who were lucky enough to own their property at a certain time paid much less in taxes than their more recent neighbors. It discouraged moving, it discouraged the sell of homes, and again, was essentially arbitrary. Furthermore, the entire project was organized by a conservative organization that followed Grover Norquist's view that it was necessary to 'kill government" by starving it of funds. To this day, this and other anti-tax initiatives, have placed California in a constant state of budgetary crisis. So here, you see the example of more or less precisely what was warned about. A certain slice of the voting public took their short term interests as more valuable but caused untold chaos and harm to their state. Their children were less well educated. Their services were less efficient. And so on."
Firstly, although I support my conception of DD I don't believe it should be allowed to tamper with the budget of a government. Government should be able to make and spend money as it chooses within some restrictions. So the problem here isn't that DD doesn't work but that it seems in California it's been taken too far. The main problem I see with Prop 13 (besides that it tampers with the budget) is that it placed protections on itself. It says that any state tax increases have to be passed with 2/3 approval in both houses. This is just crap. Initiatives shouldn't be allowed to tie the hands of government. To me this isn't a damning rebuke of DD but rather the system of DD that California has fashioned. To use this as proof that DD is untenable is like using gerrymandering as proof that representative democracy in the US is fundamentally flawed.
From your article:
"California public schools, which in the 1960s had been ranked among the best nationally in student achievement, have fallen to 48th in many surveys of student achievement.[8] Some have disputed Proposition 13's direct role in the move to state financing of public schools, because schools financed mostly by property taxes were declared unconstitutional in Serrano vs. Priest, and Proposition 13 was then passed partially as a result of that case.[7] California's spending per pupil was the same as the national average until about 1985, when it began dropping, which led to another referendum, Proposition 98, that requires a certain percentage of the state's budget to be directed towards education.[3]"
Funding of schools using property taxes was declared unconstitutional so-if I understand how US constitutional law works- Prop 13 merely did what representative government was moving to do anyway. Proposition 98 later redressed the problem that, arguably, wasn't even caused by Prop 13. This seems to me like an argument FOR DD. A mistake that might not even have been the result of DD was fixed by it. Yes, the damage was done but as has been said, property taxes funding education was declared unconstitutional.
"Local governments now use imaginative strategies to maintain or increase revenue in the face of Proposition 13 and the state's attendant loss of property tax revenue (which formerly went to cities and counties). Most California localities have recently sought their voters' approval for special assessments that would levy new taxes earmarked for services that used to be paid for entirely or partially from property taxes: road and sewer maintenance, school funding, street lighting, police and firefighting units, and penitentiary facilities. Sales tax rates have increased from 5% (the typical pre-Prop 13 level) to 8% and beyond."
Government seems to be working around Prop 13 to find funding. Besides, you can't tell me that much of the wased spending that goes on in any government couldn't have been brought to bear on this problem as well.
As for Proposition 187. I don't like this bill but the people had the right to make it and, come to think of it, so did any representative government that chose to as well. Except for this:
"Its constitutionality was immediately challenged by several lawsuits. On November 11, 1994, federal judge Matthew Byrne issued a temporary restraining order against it, on grounds that it exceeded state authority in the federal realm of immigration. The case worked its way through the courts. The multiple cases were consolidated and brought before Judge Mariana Pfaelzer, who allowed the case to languish in her court for three years. And then when she finally released an opinion, Governor Wilson appealed it, which led it being brought to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court. However, in 1998, before the judges could rule, newly elected Democratic Gov. Gray Davis had the case brought before mediation. Following this, he dropped the appeals process before the courts, effectively killing the law."
Yes, it seems the various checks and balances in the American system worked to destroy a crappy law, just as often happens when crappy laws are created by an RD. Unconstitutional and stupid laws aren't the sole realm of the initiative and referendum. That's what the courts are there to counter-balance. Again Teddy Roosevelt said it best "I believe in the Initiative and Referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative." DD is just another check and balance that can be added to the system to represent the view of the populace.
Darth Mobius said:
Saskwach said:
Oh Jesus Christ people. Sorry to interrupt your elitist fears of the common man... I mean theorising, but as I've already pointed out, there are countries and states with some and/or all of the elements of direct democracy and THEY AREN'T LIVING UNDER THE MOB. You cannot simply say that "people are stupid and discriminatory (here implying that you are obviously more enlightened) and any system that asks people what they think is doomed to failure" while Switzerland gets along WONDERFULLY with JUST SUCH A SYSTEM.
I all-caps when people don't listen.
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."-George Orwell
I actually was saying that everyone is an idiot, and that you can't trust people... Especially myself. Look at my marriage. If I had been half as smart as my IQ implies, I never would have gotten married, and I never would have gotten her pregnant if I still had. So yes, Everyone is an idiot, with a few notable exceptions (Check my friends list) and thus you can't trust the blind idiotic masses. Sorry, but you are simply putting words in our mouths to make us sound pompous, and by doing so, trying to show that you are superior...
That post as I implied rather weakly earlier was a heat of the moment post that went too far. I wrote it because I've heard exactly the same arguments from pretty pompous people who really ARE as I unfairly described you all. It gets frustrating to hear the same points that I usually hear from people who think they are somehow worthier-these people were politicians and judges-than the people they govern. Sorry about projecting.
Larenxis said:
Oh and on another note, if you're unhappy with your government, start a revolution. You have free will, and considering you have an internet connection, you probably have the resources. I'm getting around to it, by the way.
Don't think I won't!
